What’s coming in v0.3.0?

The next release of WPGraphQL will be version v0.3.0, and is slated to be released next week.

This release is arguably the most substantial release to date. It’s going to made up of 2 major features: “DataLoader” and “Model Layer“

DataLoader

The role of DataLoader is to load data as efficiently as possible. You can read some of the highlights in the PR comment here: https://github.com/wp-graphql/wp-graphql/pull/722#issue-261315185

Model Layer

The goal of the Model Layer is to centralize access control to objects and properties throughout the Graph. In short, that means we just want to make things more secure.

At the moment, some potentially sensitive data is exposed by default, and it’s the site owner’s responsibility to filter and adjust the Schema and resolvers to only expose data they want to be exposed in the API. You can read more about that here (under the Sensitive Data heading): https://docs.wpgraphql.com/getting-started/users

The Model Layer switches the plugins stance to be more restrictive by default, and allow site owners to loosen the restrictions when necessary, instead of expecting site owners to go through the effort of limiting potentially private content out of the box. Of course, each application is different, and our defaults may not be what you need for your application, so you will be able to filter access at a very granular level to make the GraphQL API work best for your specific needs.

The Model Layer centralizes access checks by taking into consideration the “current_user” making the request, then determines what objects (Posts, Terms, Comments, etc) and fields of those objects (Title, Content, etc) should be exposed to the user making the request. Fields like user emails will now only be exposed by default to authenticated users with “list_users” capabilities, for example. If you want to make override that new default and expose a field that we have restricted, you’ll have the ability to control that via various filters.

We’ll be working on a formal upgrade guide, as there will be numerous breaking changes for this release, but we think they’re all very welcome breaking changes.

You can keep an eye on progress in the branches here:

• Model Layer: https://github.com/wp-graphql/wp-graphql/tree/feature/model-layer
• DataLoader: (based off the Model Layer branch) https://github.com/wp-graphql/wp-graphql/tree/feature/dataloader

Security Audit

Over the past weekend we received the results of a Security Audit performed by Simone Quatrini of Pen Test Partners. The security audit pointed out some Insecure Access Control violations. Most of the violations in the report had already been resolved by the in-progress Model Layer branch, such as exposed user email addresses, which, as mentioned above is documented here.

There were 2 issues presented that we were not on our radar and we are grateful to Simone for bringing to our attention. We will be patching shortly as part of the v0.3.0 release. One issue, in particular, will be fixed for previous versions of the plugin as well, and details will be published about that once it has been resolved.

Full details of the Security Audit and resolutions to the issues will be published after the v0.3.0 release and other mentioned patches have been released.